Chapter 6

12 hours earlier...

I could not believe my brother was sitting across from me in the living room, pointing a gun at me. But then, I've always known he was trouble. I just shouldn't have believed that this time around would be any different.

Martin had always been trouble, even as a kid. Where other brothers would protect and defend their sisters, Martin was always running us down, or, worse, abusing us. It was nothing to him to call us names in front of his friends, or to hit my sister or me hard enough to leave bruises whenever he was angry. Mom was never home — most of the time she spent her paycheck on alcohol and cigarettes, spending her time in cheap bars where she went home with whoever showed interest in bedding her. Rose knew she was not a bastard child; Mama was married to her daddy for three months before he was shot in a liquor store robbery off the strip. My brother and I weren't as lucky. We were "accidents," something that happened while she was busy banging anything that even looked at her sympathetically. Apparently, it never occurred to her to give us up for adoption, either. She'd leave a little food in the fridge, tell Rose she was in charge, and leave us alone in the small apartment. Every once in a while, Mrs. Colletti down the hall would come to our door to make sure we were all still alive, and she even brought us homemade spaghetti a few times when there was nothing to eat 'cause Mama spent all the money. It was a hard life, and Martin learned early that he could get away with hurting us... because nobody was around to stop him.

Whoever my father was, it was obvious he gave me some good genes. Maybe karma was looking out for me, knowing what a miserable childhood I'd have. As I got into my teens, I was tall and lean, and found out I could move. I did whatever I could to learn dance, sweeping the floors at a dance studio every day in exchange for just a couple of hours of lessons a week. Whenever I was moving in time with music, I felt like I was who I was supposed to be, and there was no one in the world who could trouble me when I was dancing.

But then Martin came home one day and beat me until I couldn't walk. By then, Mama was dead — she'd been knifed by a guy in a hotel room, some guy she met in a bar and who turned out to be so crazy he killed her thinking she was his ex-wife. Rose was 17 at the time, and she worked out something with old lady Colletti to keep us in our apartment, and to keep us together — otherwise we'd have been separated and put into foster care. I wonder if it would've made a difference.

Anyway, Rose held on until Martin was old enough to take care of me, and then she was out the door, married to some bent-nose whose biggest skill seemed to be carrying a baseball bat in the trunk of his car and using it on people who didn't pay their bills on time. Knees were his specialty. I wish there had been something... anything... that would have put Martin in his sights.

Hell, I just wish I had the bat.

Martin saw how the guys looked at me. He could see the drool dripping from their chins when they watched me walk by, and he knew I didn't give any of them the time of day. Since he couldn't be bothered to actually work for a living, he decided to earn money the old-fashioned way... by pimping his sister.

The first beating was really his means of starting to separate me from my dreams. Every time I tried to leave the apartment, he slap and punch me until I was unable to take anymore, then he'd drag me back to my room and throw me back inside. He starved me, abused me, did everything except rape me. Turned out he'd already promised my virginity to someone else in exchange for a cash payment. He didn't want to damage me too much, but he needed my spirit broken so he could keep me in line. Eventually, I stopped trying to leave my room. I didn't bathe, didn't cry, didn't move. The bruises healed, but I refused to eat, so I started getting even thinner. Martin didn't care about that, really. He had a plan, and my passivity fit his plans perfectly.

He came into the room daily, inspecting my body. He brought food, but it went uneaten. He talked to me, but I said nothing. I tried to make my body an empty shell as I withdrew deep within my head.

He brought the first boy home with him a few days later. The guy had paid Martin $200 to be the one to take my cherry. He'd been the highest bidder. I lay on the bed, naked and unmoving. He came in with Martin following close behind. He wanted me to suck his cock. I didn't move. He grabbed my hair and forced my lips to his dick. I didn't open my mouth. He kept trying to push it into my mouth, and I just kept it closed. He whined at Martin, who just shrugged his shoulders and said, "You didn't pay for a blowjob, you paid to be her first fuck. So fuck her already!" The dumbass dragged me to the edge of the bed and spread my legs. Without another word, he stabbed his cock between my pussy lips and tried to push in. I wasn't wet, and was even a bit dehydrated. I'll never forget the expression on his face. He withdrew his cock quickly, yelling, "What's she got in there, sandpaper?" Martin laughed at him and, ever considerate, tossed him a tube of KY. "I was saving this for her other cherry, but you seem to need it more." He laughed as the guy rubbed some over his cock, then tried to push some inside my vagina with two fingers. Nothing he did made any impression on me.

It was over fast. I was tight, and what little KY he got into to me lessened the friction only a little. Once he broke my hymen, he was done in eight strokes. I absently counted them all, wondering how many licks it actually did take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. One... two... three...

He didn't use a condom.

After he came, Martin led him out of the room. I heard their raised voices outside as the guy complained about my failure to contribute to his pleasure. Martin came back into the room, and rummaged through my underwear drawer until he found a pair of white cotton panties. He swiped them over my vagina, pulling a mixture of lubricant, cum, and blood onto the fabric. He carried the panties back out to the asshole, telling him to show those to his friends as a trophy. I guess he must've gotten his money, because the guy left and Martin wasn't far behind him. I lay on the bed and felt the warm goo leaking from between my legs. I couldn't be bothered to get up and clean myself.

When he came back later, Martin yelled at me to get cleaned up, more "clients" would be coming soon. I didn't move. He slapped me. I didn't move. He threatened me. I didn't... well, you know. Finally, he stripped naked, grabbed me, and shoved me into the shower. He scrubbed my body fiercely with a washcloth, but, being a clueless man, knew nothing about douches or feminine cleansing. I didn't bother to tell him.

Over the next few weeks, I was raped twenty times. Once, three guys took turns taking my ass and my pussy. Other than my passivity, Martin was as happy as I'd ever seen him. He was getting paid for doing nothing more than bringing guys to the apartment and letting them fuck me. He didn't charge much, given my lack of participation, but it was enough to pay for whatever he seemed to need at the time. Somehow, despite not eating, despite the abuse, I apparently still looked desirable. I had all the right attributes... I was young, still attractive, and obviously fuckable. The men just kept coming.

Martin bathed me, forced me to eat by feeding me by hand, and made sure I looked and smelled as good as he could make me. I didn't lift a finger. When I started pissing my bed because I refused to leave it, he put rubber sheets on underneath the linen. I wondered how long it would be before he tired of coddling me and started beating me again. But then, I really didn't care all that much what he or the other assholes did. They could have my body, but they'd never have my mind or my soul. Like they cared.

My use as a cum receptacle ended 45 days after it began, when the police beat down the door of the apartment and arrested everyone inside. Martin had recruited eight guys for a gang-bang, and one of them just happened to be an undercover cop. I'm sure that the plain-clothes officer must've said something to the uniforms about me, because instead of being arrested, I was taken to a hospital. They later told me I had gotten the clap, and my vaginal and anal tissue were inflamed and infected from near constant use. When I refused to respond to questions and just looked stupidly at the doctors and nurses, they put me in the psychiatric ward. "Catatonic" was a word that was bandied about a lot. I knew I wasn't catatonic. I just didn't care.

And then, one day, I felt someone touch my arm, and I smelled a familiar scent. I turned my head, and Rose was standing there, her face wet with tears. When she saw me looking at her, she completely broke down. She buried her head in my shoulder, wailing, "Oh, God, Sherry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry!!" She begged me for forgiveness for having left me alone, for having tired of being responsible and running away from the two of us. For leaving me for an asshole who got her pregnant and then tossed her aside for another girl. She raved on and on, soaking my hospital gown with her tears. Finally, she started to subside, and I realized that, somewhere in the middle of her rant, I had put my arms around her to try to console her I was the invalid, but she was the basket case.

Finally down to a few sniffles, she stood up and looked down at me, toying with my hair as she threatened to dissolve into another flood of tears. I opened my mouth, trying to speak, but all that came out was a croak. I realized I hadn't actually said anything to anyone in days. I motioned for water, and she quickly poured me a cup from the pitcher by the bed. When my throat was finally moist, I looked at her and said, "Please don't cry anymore. I'm afraid I might drown."

She didn't laugh, but something like hope seemed to dawn in her eyes at my feeble joke. I gripped her hand, and forced out a few more words. "Promise me!" I said raggedly, trying to ignore how much my throat hurt. "Promise me right now... that you'll be a better mother to your kids than Mama was for us." I squeezed her hand as hard as I could and she winced, but nodded vigorously. I managed to whisper, "I'll hold you to that," before closing my eyes, exhausted by the effort. I slept for most of the next three days.

Physically, I was completely healed within months. Exercise and a good diet got me back into dancing shape within the year. Rose found a cheap apartment in the city and I moved in with her. She started working as a waitress, earning money to pay the bills we had immediately. When she was too close to her due date to keep working, I did what I had to... I started working the strip clubs. I wasn't 18 yet, but I managed to get a fake I.D., and the bar managers would take one look at me and sign me up as quick as they could. Given the number of aliases and the number of cash transactions taking place in some of the seedier places, the paperwork was sometimes just a liability form, so I couldn't sue the owner for whatever went on there. Sherry Coulton disappeared; Sherree C. Jermaine was the shell I erected around myself.

Mentally, I was still withdrawn, just without the passivity I'd shown with Martin. When it really sunk in that Rose was pregnant, I became focused on making sure she kept her promise to be a better mother to them than ours was to us. That goal kept me moving forward at times when all I wanted to do was retreat. I didn't want to be around men, but focusing on Rose and her soon-to-be-born twins made me face the reality that I could make more money being a sex object than I could anywhere else. I wasn't particularly good at first, especially when the strip bar boys got too close to me. I shrank away from them as they crowded the stage, despite the money they waved in my direction. It was odd; the all-nude dives I worked at first actually were a better fit for my mental state. The men threw their money on the stage, and I just picked it up as my routine ended. But those clubs were also the worst when it came to the trolls who sought to lure the dancers into bed for the promise of a few dollars more. There were too many of them, and the more they pressed, the worse my reaction. I seemed to draw the worst of the lot, too. I changed jobs four times because of over-enthused regulars who seemed to be stalking me. But I learned the game in the meantime. I watched the other dancers, and learned to imitate them, to fake the enthusiasm and the sensuality... to let the men put money in my g-string and occasionally sneak a fondle without flinching. I could retreat behind the shield that let me survive my brother's amorality and give the audience what it wanted, and they couldn't touch me... at least, not where it counted. All they saw was "Sweet Sherree," or "Sassy Sherree," or whatever nickname I was introduced with from night to night.